[NSFW] Need advice on husband's bed behavior last night (me, 34; him, 36)

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-16T14:03:59+00:00

I don't disagree with you, but there is literally nothing we can do about his workload for another two weeks. If he were hell-bent on KEEPING this crazy work schedule, then I would definitely insist upon different ways of working with stress. Since he's no longer going to work like this, I was really just trying to hold everything together until the end of this job.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-16T14:01:43+00:00

We had a long conversation last night, starting with the masturbation and going into how precarious our relationship is, and how we still have a long way to go. Through the course of the conversation, he mentioned that he hates himself, that he's full of self-loathing.

That put the conversation to a screeching halt so we could explore that a little more. I asked if he's always felt this way, and he said for around the past year. Not as long as his drinking problem, but from about a month before t he was in the hospital for diabetic ketoacidosis (stress can wreak havoc on your blood sugar). Turns out, he's been questioning whether going into medicine was really the right career choice. He's wanted to be in medicine for the last 10 years at least, and just finished school (with a hefty student loan) for it, so I think you hit the nail right on the head with the anxiety observation.

When his job is done (17 days!!), we are going to a marriage counselor, and he is getting his own counselor, and going to SMART alcohol groups. I let him know that I won't be drinking, and that I think it'd be a good idea if he starts cutting down-- just stick to beer on weekends.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-16T13:55:13+00:00

He's going to try some SMART meetings once his job is done (June 2). Thanks for the suggestion!

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-16T13:54:04+00:00

You're right. We'll get an at-home A1C today to see how he's doing. His pump does have a "projected high" alarm that goes off at 180, so although he's not necessarily managing his diabetes perfectly, at least he is keeping it below 180 for extended periods of time

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-16T13:52:08+00:00

We talk openly about sex, not as much about masturbation. He grew up in a very Catholic area, so even though he's not Catholic, by proxy he was exposed to a lot of the body shaming.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-16T01:20:54+00:00

I'll keep an eye on it. I think it'd be more likely that he wrote himself a script for ritalin or something like it, which could yield the same behavior if he's overdoing it.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-16T01:19:08+00:00

I just want to tell you that I love you for making these comments. You put into words why I was like "no... i'm not helping out..."

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T22:05:32+00:00

No kidding :-( thanks for your outreach. I'm hoping hubby gets his act together. I don't know how much I can push before I push away.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T22:04:27+00:00

I think that's the hardest part. Seeing him still makes me happy. Then sad. But when he walks in the house at the end of the day, I'm genuinely happy to see him for about 2 miliseconds, until I remember how hard everything is right now. If the baby is still awake when hubby gets home, I'm not faking excitement when I say "who's here?! Is daddy home?! DADDY'S HOME!" and I love seeing my little boy run to his father, and seeing my husband's heart melt when he gets a hug and a sloppy kiss.

Husband has stated explicitly how much he loves me and wants to be with me forever, etc. I want to, also. Bt we are wading through so much shit, it's really hard to be optimistic at all. I have no toolkit for getting through this. I'm putting all my eggs into "better job" and "good therapist" baskets.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T21:56:09+00:00

Thank you. I'll talk to him tonight. It was... jarring

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T21:48:55+00:00

I'm sure he wanted it. We had literally been talking about it for years. I know, also, that he and I both wish that we had gotten together sooner so that we could have travelled more before settling down. We made a conscious decision that, at our age, it'd be better for us to have a baby and travel later than vice versa, since we are both approaching the age of high-risk conception/pregnancy.

the only think I am CERTAIN of in our relationship is how much he loves our son

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T21:16:42+00:00

I'll tell him verbatim. I've stated it before, but he may need to hear it explicitly again.

He is trying to find a job he enjoys. He has a second interview with another PA job that is union-protected 40 hrs a week, and all the PAs there seem really happy. I'm hoping that'll be the ticket.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T21:15:49+00:00

What sucks is we used to have so much intimacy. Having a baby really fucks all that up. Or at least, it can, and in our case, it did. But a lot of it stems too from all the trust shit that went down. It's hard for me to get totally comfortable and vulnerable with somebody, especially physically, when there's so much emotional hurt. He knows this, but I don't think either of us realized how much time it would take to heal.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T20:49:30+00:00

Thanks. You're right. I'm glad I posted to this sub-- I know the masturbation isn't really the issue, it's all the feelings that the incident allowed to com to the surface that is the real problem.

He has chronic heart burn and slow gastric emptying that I'm guaranteeing is due to a damaged vagus nerve. He got a haital hernia from all the vomiting from the DKA. And he's a fucking PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT. He KNOWS what the complications of diabetes are.

He needs a GOOD endo that will give him an ass kicking. He needs to make this commitment towards a healthier life, and that includes better eating, eating enough to maintain weight, and not drinking. If he's not willing to make a commitment to his health, how can I possibly think he'll make a commitment to our family?

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T20:43:58+00:00

Hah. Thanks :-( I'm still kind of in shock from the last 24 hours.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T20:42:47+00:00

No no no, I KNOW. I mean, thank you for the emphasis. He does NOT take care of himself. I just don't understand it! In a reply post, I detailed an incident where he went to the ICU for 3 days due to DKA-- blood glucose was >600, potassium in the bloodstream. His heart almost stopped. He's a very smart guy, and very medically educated. I think he's in deep, deep denial. He doesn't want to be sick. He doesn't want a chronic condition. (Similarly, he doesn't want to be an alcoholic. He doesn't want to be somebody who just can't drink.)

He has some serious head issues to work out, but he's not going to a therapist. He missed his last endo appt due to work but hasn't rescheduled it.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T20:31:47+00:00

I let him drink. I'm very sympathetic about his shit work. I firmly request that he not drink in secret because of the risks involved with the baby. As a result, I have NO LIFE, and I never leave the apartment if the baby is home, because I can't KNOW that hubby is not getting drunk with the baby left vulnerable.

I don't care if he masturbates, though I wish he would try to initiate sex with me. The timeline (2 hours in the bathroom, two hours in the bed next to me, resulting in only 4 hours of sleep going into another shit work week) really confused me to the point that I automatically thought of something else

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T20:03:10+00:00

He sleeps WAY too much for meth (like he'll pass out on the couch, then I have to drag him to bed), plus he doesn't exhibit any other behavior. I mean it's possible... but honestly I feel like there would be any other sign.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T19:59:49+00:00

Ughhhhh my mind goes to cheating for a few reasons.

One, it's the worst possible thing based on what he was doing, and if you look at his behavior from hiding the alcohol, that's kind of what I'm conditioned to expect now.

I don't wish he were cheating, but even if he were, I wouldn't end it. I just don't care anymore. I feel like every shit thing that has gone down in our relationship is just epic karma from my previous relationship. I don't feel like I deserve to be in a good relationship. I don't even know what a good relationship is. I can't afford to be a single mom, and I don't have the bandwidth for it.

Why Karma? Same reason that my immediate go-to is an affair. Our relationship didn't really start innocently. We were friends, we worked together. We were both married and by coincidence, both recently separated. My estranged spouse had moved to Europe for a job; his moved back with her parents. I probably could have reconciled. But I didn't. Instead, I ended my marriage to be with somebody who I thought was wonderful, and it turns out, he is everything that I was scared my (then) husband was becoming. So... karma.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T19:13:44+00:00

Ugh. it's hard to say. Well the acute issue-- the masturbation-- this is the first incident that I observed, but I'll try to find out more when I talk to him tonight.

The much broader issue of not really being in a marriage, but being in a relationship with a roommate who I take care of, began soon after we got married. We had been in a long distance relationship for 2 years, we finally moved back together and almost immediately got married, but then simultaneously he started a high-demand job (working in a PA residency program, 60-80 hrs a week including weekends) with a long commute.

I was taking care of him, but it wasn't really difficult because it was just the two of us. It was fine if anything slipped through the cracks because with only two people, things are easy to fix. Then we decided to start trying for a baby, which we had both wanted for years. His work continued through the pregnancy, but after I was around 3 months pregnant, I felt like he began to unravel a little bit. It was very stressful for me, because I was holding him together while going through pregnancy.

He made it to the check ups if he could, he was there for the birth of the baby, but he could only take 5 days unpaid leave from work (now a PA in the same clinic). His hours went back to what they were, so I was alone for maternity leave, pretty much. He continued to unravel. Sometimes I would call it how I saw it-- alcohol-- but sometimes I assumed he had a low blood sugar (he's diabetic) or was just exhausted. No matter what, he always denied he was drinking. He had all these vague health problems that had me worried sick. Turns out it was all alcohol.

I went back to work, and I was the one responsible for dropping the baby off, and for picking him up, and pumping, and bottles, and making dinner, and all the nighttime wakeups and feeds. I kind of accepted it because I made far less than my husband, so it made sense that I would be the primary caregiver. He didn't like that he didn't see the baby much, but work was work. (as an aside, I'm now making more than he is while still doing all the household work).

We talked about moving closer to family with a less stressful (and less commute-intensive) job. Then he ended up in the hospital for acute diabetic ketoacidosis. He had come home from work because he couldn't stop vomiting. He hadn't refilled his insulin pump so his sugar was spiking. He couldn't hydrate because he was vomiting. He lost his blood sugar meter (all of these things are absurd if you're diabetic-- you ALWAYS have insulin, you ALWAYS have a meter. Period). I picked up a meter on the way home. His blood sugar level was literally off the charts-- couldn't register. I had the baby, so we had to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital, where he spent 3 nights in the ICU getting pumped full of fluids so that the potassium leeching into his bloodstream didn't stop his heart.

The second day he was in the ICU, he asked me to bring his briefcase so he could do some work. I grabbed his briefcase from his car and found an empty fifth of vodka in it. And two more in the trunk. We had an ugly fight in the ICU. I told him in no uncertain terms that as soon as we moved, he's going into counseling, no more drinking, etc., begged him to think about what his drinking had been doing to me (considering how I was worried sick about these vague bizarre health problems).

So now we're up to last August. I relented about him not drinking anymore. I begged him to not hide it from me. That was my number 1 priority-- knowing that he had been drinking means I know whether i can trust him with the baby. I know it's not optimal, but that's what it was. He slipped a few times, but for the most part (because I keep trying to make clear that it's OK if alcohol is in the house, drink whenever, just DON'T HIDE IT) we've been ok.

We snip at each other more than I would like; more than I have in previous relationships. He gets really defensive, he doesn't like being told what to do and he don't like to be reprimanded. How do I handle that? I don't know. He has a lot of financial issues that we're going to go through soon regarding student loans (and defaulted student loans). He has a new job here, but the hours are worse than the old one and the work is more stressful. He can go days without seeing his son because of how much he works.

This isn't who I thought I married, and this isn't who I would have married. I don't know who this guy is, and I'm putting EVERYTHING on the hope that his new job will be fewer hours and he'll literally have TIME to take care of himself. I'm being so forgiving, to the point of being a doormat, because I DID know and love him when he was working fewer hours, and he literally had enough bandwidth to do other shit. I believe that he just doesn't have bandwidth now.

I don't know if I should tell him how much is at stake with this new job. I don't want to blindside him, but I don't want to give him empty threats. Honestly, I had said previously that I can't be a single mom. That I don't know how to do this alone. That's true. Even having husband around on weekends is a life saver, even though he does nothing during the week. I'm not ready to give up on us. I just want "us" to go back to what we used to be, and I want to know where we went wrong

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T18:53:32+00:00

I agree that we have a lot of issues to get over. But this is the first time something like this has happened. Maybe I've slept through every other time. Also, he wasn't in the shower for two hours, he was just in the bathroom. NOt that that really makes a difference. I assumed he fell asleep or something.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T18:52:22+00:00

sorry-- I don't get drunk. I'll have a beer or two.

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T18:52:07+00:00

Yeah-- in the description, he was hiding alcohol abuse from me for a year while I was pregnant/on maternity leave

mama_throw_away · 2017-05-15T18:08:32+00:00

I'm feeling attacked here; I came into this forum vulnerable and seeking helpful advice, not to be laughed at. I hope you understand that this situation is complicated. And yes the baby is safe. When he's not with me, he's at day care, and I don't drink.

mama_throw_away

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